The Two-Way

11:50 am

Thu January 9, 2014

Aurora Watchers 'May Be In Luck' As Solar Flare Reaches Earth

A coronal mass ejection (CME) exploding off the surface of the sun in an image captured Tuesday by the European Space Agency and NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory.

UncreditedAP

Update at 3:05 p.m. ET:

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center now reports:

"The coronal mass ejection (CME), originally expected to arrive around 0800 UTC (3:00 a.m. EST) today, January 9, was observed at the ACE spacecraft just upstream of Earth at 1932 UTC (2:32 p.m. EST)."

The SWPC goes on to say that "the original forecast continues to be for G3 (Strong) Geomagnetic Storm activity on January 9 and 10."

"Aurora watchers may be in luck for tonight."

Also, The Associated Press reports that Orbital Sciences Corp.'s resupply mission to the International Space Station — delayed on Wednesday over concern that the CME might cause problems for the Antares rocket — has successfully launched from Wallops Flight Facility in eastern Virginia.

"The CME, originally expected to arrive around 0800 UTC (3 a.m. EST) today, January 9, is now slightly overdue."

Overdue? How long? We're not quite sure, but NOAA's forecast of the CME arriving Thursday still stands.

It's important to note, as NASA does, that "these particles cannot travel through the atmosphere to harm humans on Earth, but they can affect electronic systems in satellites and on the ground." The X-class flares are, however, nothing to be trifled with, according to SpaceWeather.com:

"Scientists classify solar flares according to their X-ray brightness in the wavelength range 1 to 8 Angstroms. There are 3 categories: X-class flares are big; they are major events that can trigger planet-wide radio blackouts and long-lasting radiation storms. M-class flares are medium-sized; they can cause brief radio blackouts that affect Earth's polar regions. Minor radiation storms sometimes follow an M-class flare. Compared to X- and M-class events, C-class flares are small with few noticeable consequences here on Earth."

AuroraWatch UK has "urged people not to be overly confident of viewings," according to The Telegraph.

"This is the first significant flare of 2014, and follows on the heels of a midlevel flare earlier in the day," NASA spokeswoman Karen Fox of the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., wrote in a statement earlier this week. "Each flare was centered over a different area of a large sunspot group currently situated at the center of the sun, about halfway through its 14-day journey across the front of the disk along with the rotation of the sun."

Despite its tardiness, the CME has already complicated things here on Earth. On Wednesday, it forced the delay of a resupply mission to the International Space Station. The launch of Orbital Sciences' unmanned Antares from Wallops Island, Va., was pushed to Thursday afternoon.